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Jenny Offill Quotes:

Jenny Offill quotes

Ocupation: Novelist

Life: b. 1968

famous quotes

And that phrase - 'sleeping like a baby.' Some blonde said it blithely on the subway the other day. I wanted to lie down next to her and scream for five hours in her ear.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.22, Vintage

Topics: Baby, Lying, Sleep

quote and that phrase sleeping like a baby some blonde said it blithely on the subway the jenny offill Quotes

But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.77, Granta Books

Topics: Fun, Getting Older, Getting Old

One of the odd things about being a writer is that you never reach a point of certainty, a point of mastery where you can say, Right. Now I understand how this is done.

Topics: Odd Things, Mastery, Done

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.11, Vintage

Topics: Art, Monsters, Married

I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.34, Vintage

Topics: Two, People

These bits of poetry that stick to her like burrs.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.78, Vintage

Topics: Sticks, Burrs

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead,

Topics: Art, Monsters, Married

To live in a city is to be forever flinching,

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.13, Vintage

Topics: Cities, Forever

The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.18, Vintage

Topics: Home, People, Reason

A few nights later, I secretly hope that I might be a genius. Why else can no amount of sleeping pills fell my brain? But in the morning my daughter asks me what a cloud is and I cannot say.

Topics: Daughter, Morning, Sleep, Sleeping Pills

The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.13, Vintage

Topics: Buddhist, Moving, Suffering, States Of Consciousness, Moving Back

You think you want the blue skies, the open road, but really you want the tunnel, you want to know how the story ends.

Topics: Thinking, Tunnels, Blue, Open Road, Blue Sky

The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun fact.)

Topics: Fun, Love Is, Facts

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.45, Granta Books

Topics: Tired, Imagine, Courtesy

Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.65, Vintage

Topics: Ambition, Looks, Coats

For years, I kept a Post-it note above my desk. WORK NOT LOVE! was what it said. It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.10, Vintage

Topics: Years, Kind, Notes, Post It Notes

Also she signed away the right to self-destruct years ago. The fine print on the birth certificate, her friends call it.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.79, Vintage

Topics: Self, Years, Birth, Fine Print, Self Destruct

When God is a father, he is said to be elsewhere. When God is a mother, she is said to be everywhere.

source: - Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.49, Vintage

Topics: Mother, Father, Said

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